| Abstract |
Safety for women in cities, in particular in mega-cities, is a major issue, given current approaches to city planning frequently neglect women's perspectives, resulting in cities where women and female-read people cannot move freely without being constantly worried about safety. Through a co-design approach, we explored the potential for Smart City technology to create urban environments that are safe for women. We ran a set of online co-design sessions, starting with three mixed and then eight city-specific sessions with female-identifying persons from Berlin, Melbourne and Cairo. Through these, requirements of women for smart city technology were explored and analysed in connection to the contexts of the respective cities. We found that in terms of practical solutions, ideas are always bound to the local context of the city, to routines of women's lifestyle, as well as to cultural specifics of the place. Nevertheless, general requirements for Smart City solutions across all cities similarly concern "Preventive measures", "Reactive measures", "Reporting support" and "Systematic changes". |
